


The Night Butcher

by Missus_Byssus



Category: Hilda (Cartoon)
Genre: Alfur is adorable, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Folklore, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, and he has no idea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23677522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missus_Byssus/pseuds/Missus_Byssus
Summary: Horrifying nightmares have begun to plague Alfur’s sleep, but with Hilda, Twig, and his other companions there to help, their friendship can overcome any obstacles and solve any… no? It can’t? Wait, isn’t this a kid’s cartoon? Isn’t Hilda supposed to save the day? Okay fine: Hilda, Twig, Mum, and Raven try real hard to help Alfur but nothing, not even whiskey, is working, so we know this is serious. To get to the bottom of Alfur’s nightmares, the gang must trek back into the wilderness to confront an enemy from their past, dodge the animal kingdom’s (well the Elven kingdom’s) most fearsome beast, and… there is paperwork. Possibly the only redeeming thing about this story in Alfur’s eyes.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 52





	1. The First Five Deaths

There was no hiding anything from Hilda. Alfur knew this very well, but it hadn’t stopped him from trying. 

Perhaps if a Marra were causing his nightmares Hilda could have come up with a clever plot to help him. He knew for a fact that no Marra had ever signed a contract to be able to see elves, though, and he also knew for a fact (thank you, marvelous Trolberg library) that a Marra can only haunt those victims she can see. 

Logically, then, his were just normal, authentic, free-range nightmares. The sort of nightmare Hilda would want to ask him questions about, to _get to the bottom of_ , but the sort of nightmare he knew he would not be describing to children, even if that child was Hilda. Hilda was tough, and Hilda was wise, but still. 

The first time it happened it must have lasted three seconds. He was back home in the Northern Counties, going about his business and enjoying the sun on his face, the air strung merrily with the song of the mistle thrush and the scent of lilies of the valley. 

And then – 

_WHAM._

Something had struck him with such sudden, brute force from behind that he’d died, immediately. 

He’d woken up right away, in the pitch dark of his clock home, feeling as if something had been squeezing the breath from his body and the life from his soul. It had been such an abrupt, undeveloped dream that it took him a few moments of gasping for air, fumbling with his door, and then staring wildly out at Hilda’s immense, moonlit room at 3:42 in the morning to realize that it had been a nightmare and he was fine. 

Still, the feeling of having just died does not tend to leave a person right away. 

Alfur had crawled back under his blankets and stared at the ceiling, unable to close his eyes because the feeling of finality in his dream-self’s death would not leave him. He’d never felt anything like it before and he thought maybe it was a bit like discovering an altogether new color: one does not see the world quite the same way after such a discovery. Except finding a new color would be fun, and knowing what it felt like to die was miserable. 

_Oh don’t be so dramatic_ , he’d thought to himself, twisting onto his side and trying to nonchalantly fluff his pillow. _It was just a dream. You didn’t really die. Breathe, you dork._

He did breathe, and he did calm down, and he did go back to sleep.

And the nightmare did repeat itself, right then at 4:07 in the morning. 

Alfur very quietly made his bed, cleaned up, had a spot of tea, and then spent two hours trying very hard not to fall asleep before the rest of the household woke up. He did this by reorganizing his pens, picking off all the nitten fur from his coat and hat, re-reading his report on the contents of Hilda’s school lunches, and, finally, making the long trek into the kitchen on foot and starting Mum’s coffee water. This last process took him nearly twenty minutes, when it usually took Johanna two, but his extra time spent was absolutely worth it to see Johanna, bleary-eyed, stumble into the kitchen at 7 in the morning, squint at the already-steaming kettle, and smile.

“Thanks, Tontu,” she’d called. 

Alfur didn’t mind. 

After that, the sun rose on a lovely morning. It was Saturday, and Hilda spent it doodling at the park, laughing with Frida and David by the tide pools, and hacking diligently away at a book report on _The Hobbit_ , all activities that Alfur tagged along for and all of which he’d found absolutely thrilling. They had supper, Hilda (and Twig) took a bath to get all the tide pool muck off, Hilda went to bed, Twig curled up by her feet, and Alfur finished his report on J.R.R Tolkien’s strange impression of elves by about 10 at night. 

He was exhausted, and curled into bed quite happily, with the promise of a more comprehensive report on Tolkien’s understanding of Finnish cosmology on tomorrow’s horizon. Sleep came easily. 

The day was warm; the thrush was singing. The air smelled of lilies – 

_WHAM._

His body struck the ground. He sat up with a gasp, in the dark, and got up to open the door of his home and check the face of the clock, fully expecting it to read 12:00 or that the hands would be spinning backwards or that the hands would not be there at all – in short, expecting some omen that this time he was actually dead. 

The clock read 3:40 in the morning.

The second hand ticked merrily along. 

Alfur felt his lungs expanding and contracting, but pressed his hand to his chest to feel his own heartbeat, just in case. It was racing, but it was there. 

From the foot of Hilda’s bed, Twig was staring at him. 

_“Sorry,”_ Alfur whispered to the deerfox, and quietly shut his door. 

He was upset about having had the same nightmare, and wondered briefly if it meant anything. But he was tired, and his blankets were still warm, and though he was shaken he could not keep his eyes open.

This time, the warmth of the sun was not so welcome. 

This time, the song of the mistle thrush only made him uneasy, and the lilies – 

_WHAM._

He shot up in bed with a yell, then buried his face in his hands to stifle himself. The nightmare lingered like a gong, echoing within his mind with not only a dreadful finality but with an echo of a fierce blow to the back of his neck. 

This made, of course, no sense at all, which he hated. He was safe in his clock, alone, technically unharmed. 

He sat up in bed for a few minutes, enumerating to his own psyche all the reasons he shouldn’t be having a nightmare. He had no daily fears or overwhelming anxieties. Trolberg, and especially Hilda’s house, was a safe place. He had good friends here, and no enemies. 

Warily, he lay back down, meditating on the many things he was grateful for. He knew it was a mind trick, but it was effective. In moments he felt drawn into the cozy embrace of his own good life and his own warm bed, and when sleep came he met it with trust.

Which it immediately pitched out the window. 

Sun. Thrush. Lilies. _WHAM._

Gasping, he shot up in bed, holding the back of his neck. His heartbeat was so loud in his ears he couldn’t hear the ticking of the clock. Sweeping the covers away, he stumbled from his covers and across the room to throw open the clockface door. 

The clock still ticked above him. Below, on the floor at the base of the desk, sat Twig. The deerfox was glowing white in the moonlight, head cocked to one side and staring straight up at Alfur.

 _“Sorry if I woke you,”_ he whispered down. 

Twig let out a quiet whine.

_“It was just a nightmare, everything’s fine. Sorry.”_

Alfur turned to go back into his clock but found the comparative darkness of his room, his sanctum sanctorum, to be unbearable. 

He sat down and leaned tiredly against the edge of the clock door. 

_Guess I’ll just never sleep again,_ he thought grumpily, highly aware that said grumpiness was only a clever rouse his brain was using to shield him from the fact that actually he was terrified. He was not an elf who was prone to nightmares. _Elves_ were not prone to nightmares. He didn’t know why this was happening now, or what it meant, and though he was very open-minded for an elf, he still hated unanswered questions – especially if having an answer would likely make life easier for whoever was concerned. 

He crossed his arms and tried to let out a grumpy sigh but it came out as more of a whimper.

Below, a tiny whine from Twig. 

_“Don’t worry, Twig. Go back to sleep,”_ Alfur whispered. 

He watched as Twig gave him a remarkably incredulous look before curling up on the hard wooden floor. It took the deerfox mere moments to fall back asleep. 

Alfur was the only one awake in Hilda’s room now, and he felt very lonely, and very tired. He sat in the doorway of the clock home and stared out at Hilda’s moonlit window and shivered a little but he didn’t dare get a blanket. He was afraid the warmth would lull him back to sleep.


	2. Misery Loves Company

It was a long night. Despite his best efforts and most valiant attempts at staying awake, he still fell asleep a few times, waking with a start from the nightmare, or from a nightmare in which he’d had the nightmare again – it was hard to tell. The moment the sky outside started to lighten and the earliest of the early birds had begun their morning chorus, Alfur felt some sense of relief – as if he’d spent the night being chased by a predator, and the rising of the sun was some kind of shelter. 

This morning, tea was not going to cut it for him. He made his way into the kitchen and again started the coffee water and then, in a bit of a daze, watched the clock on the microwave slouching its way towards the more godly hour of 8:00am, which was about when Mum usually emerged from her room on Sundays.

The clock had a long way to go; it was only 6:45. 

Alfur sighed, gently berating himself while turning the kettle back off. He’d forgotten what day it was. _Good thing I’m an elf instead of a nisse_ , he thought, and begun to wander towards the sitting room. Much as he liked the idea of being helpful, he just didn’t believe he’d be able to keep track of a human’s schedule, let alone two humans and their friends’ schedule. Especially since – 

_WHAM._

Alfur gasped, dropped to his knees, covered his head, and started coughing before he even really registered the sound, let alone realized that it had indeed been _just_ a sound, and that he was fine. 

He turned over to see that it had just been Mum, grumpily throwing her bedroom door open and rubbing her eyes. 

He tried to breathe a sigh of relief but he was still coughing. Rolling around on the ground coughing was no way to greet the matron of the household. He made an attempt to hop to his feet as if this morning he were the chipper little elf he usually was but found that his limbs seemed to be seized in some sort of half-petrified state and he moved rather like he was underwater. This upset his balance again and he ended up pretty much were he’d started, including the coughing bit. 

“Morning, Alfur,” mumbled Mum, who had vaguely registered his presence from the corner of one bleary eye. After a double-take she noticed the small commotion he was making on the kitchen counter, and, after staring incredulously for a moment and blinking, hurried over to him. 

“Goodness, Alfur, are you alright?”

Alfur struggled to his feet and bent over, trying to catch his breath and composure. 

“Good morning – _cough_ – Mum,” he managed, with a small wave.

“What happened?”

“Oh, it’s a bit emb – _cough_ – embarrassing, I just – _hrm_ – the sound of your door opening just, um, surprised me… You know when you gasp suddenly without taking a proper breath first?”

“Hmm… No, can’t say I know the feeling.”

“Apparently makes you cough,” Alfur said, with a small cough. 

“Sorry I surprised you,” said Johanna, slightly dubiously, peering down at him with a look that told Alfur that she knew there was more to the story, which of course she did, because she was a mom. He sighed.

“I’m a bit jumpy this morning, is all. I didn’t sleep well last night, so I came here to start the coffee water, but I forgot it was Sunday and started it too early, and I wasn’t expecting you to be up this soon so my mind was elsewhere…” Realizing he was rambling, he shut his mouth. 

“You and I are in good company then,” said Johanna, straightening up and walking over to the coffee pot. “I slept horribly too. I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Want some coffee?”

“Gods yes,” he said, carefully walking back across the counter towards the stove. His legs felt wobbly. “Careful, the stove is probably hot.”

“Thanks… You know, a nice herbal tea might be better if you’re already feeling jumpy.”

“Oh,” he sighed, sitting down between the cardamom and the nutmeg on the spice rack. “Well, it… It just seems like a coffee morning.”

“Mm-hm.” Johanna measured out the grounds and took the toaster down before rummaging in the fridge for the bread. “Toast?”

“Thank you.”

He thought about telling her that really he wanted coffee because he was worried he’d fall asleep today, and the previous two nights’ ‘sleep’ had him feeling afraid. Of course he knew he’d have to sleep eventually, but perhaps if he stayed awake all of today, he’d be so tired tonight that his slumber would be too deep for any nightmares to reach. 

Together they enjoyed a light breakfast of jam and toast, chatting quietly about the weather, whether or not to hire someone to clean the outside of the apartment windows, and other such mundanities. Johanna visibly perked up after her coffee; Alfur wished he could say the same for himself. He tried acting more awake than he felt, but she kept stealing furtive, mom-like glances at him, which told him he wasn’t doing a very good job. 

That Sunday was full of what only Sundays can be full of; Hilda, David, and Frida desperately searching out adventure, fun, and more hours of sunlight before the last gasps of the weekend inevitably surrendered to another week of school. Alfur told them he was looking to round out some reports on Trolberg and tagged along; they were delighted. He made some notes but spent most of his time simply trying not to fall off of whichever shoulder he was perched on, trying to distract himself from how tired he was, and why. 

In the evening, after dinner, Hilda and Mum retired to the couch to watch some programs. Johanna had loudly announced she was making some chamomile tea and would anybody like any. She made this announcement while already filling Alfur’s tiny mug, before filling her own. Hilda declined, saying chamomile tasted like barn. 

Alfur took a seat on the other couch cushion, sipping his tea, wondering if it would be better to stay awake longer or let the tea pull him to sleep sooner. In the end, the simple comfort of holding a warm mug made the choice for him. 

It did not take long for Hilda to lean against Mum and fall into a snooze. Alfur stared resolutely at the screen, registering not an iota of what was playing. Soon enough, Mum had fallen asleep too, leaning on the arm of the couch. The feeling of loneliness had just begun creeping back into Alfur’s mind when Twig, who had been curled on the ground, jumped softly up onto the cushion besides Alfur. The deerfox gave him a sniff before turning around three times and settling down in a careful curl around the elf. 

Twig, like Mum, was very intuitive. 

To Alfur, Twig was a large, fierce animal, undyingly loyal to friends. With Twig’s silken white fur surrounding him, not to mention his body heat, Alfur begun to feel safe and cozy. He huddled into Twig’s fur and murmured a _thanks_ , before letting the background chatter of the TV, and the presence of his best friends, lull him away from the waking world.


End file.
